Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

‘Are you looking for a room?’

She could detect traces of a Gothenburg dialect in his voice.

‘I just want to ask some questions. About a friend of mine who I think stayed here.’

The man shuffled away his slippers making a clopping noise with each step. He eventually turned up behind the desk. Hands shaking, he produced a hotel ledger. Roslin could never have imagined that hotels like the one she now found herself in still existed. It felt like she had been whisked back through time to a film from the 1940s.

‘What’s the name of the guest?’

All I know is that he’s Chinese.’

The man pushed the ledger aside, staring hard at her and shaking his head. Roslin guessed he must be suffering from Parkinson’s disease.

‘It’s normal to know the names of one’s friends. Even if they are Chinese.’

‘He’s a friend of a friend.’

‘When is he supposed to have stayed here?’

How many Chinese guests have you had here? she wondered. If there’s been even just one staying here, you must know about it.

‘At the beginning of January.’

‘I was in the hospital then. A nephew of mine looked after the hotel while I was away.’

‘Perhaps you could call him?’

‘I’m afraid not. He’s on an Arctic cruise at the moment.’

The man peered short-sightedly at the pages of the ledger.

‘We have in fact had a man from China staying here,’ he said suddenly. A Mr Wang Min Hao from Beijing. He stayed here for one night. On the twelfth of January. Is that the man you’re looking for?’

‘Yes,’ said Birgitta Roslin, scarcely able to contain her excitement. ‘That’s the one.’

The man turned the ledger so that she could read it. She took a piece of paper from her bag and made a note of the details. Name, passport number and something that was presumably an address in Beijing.

‘Thank you,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘You’ve been a big help. Did he leave anything behind in the hotel?’

‘My name’s Sture Hermansson,’ said the man. ‘My wife and I have been running this hotel since 1946. She’s dead now. I will soon be dead as well. This is the last year the hotel will exist. The building is going to be demolished.’

‘It’s sad when things turn out like that.’

Hermansson grunted disapprovingly.

‘What’s sad about that? The place is a ruin. I’m also a ruin. There’s nothing odd about old people dying. But I think this Chinaman actually did leave something behind.’

He disappeared into the room behind the counter. Birgitta Roslin waited.

She was just beginning to wonder if he’d died when he finally reappeared. He had a magazine in his hand.

‘This was in a wastebasket when I came back from the hospital. A Russian woman does the cleaning for me. As I have only eight rooms, she can manage it on her own. But she’s careless. When I came back from the hospital I checked through the hotel. This was still in the Chinaman’s room.’

Sture Hermansson handed her the magazine. It was Chinese, detailing Chinese exteriors and people. She suspected that it was a PR brochure for a company rather than a magazine as such. On the back of it were carelessly written Chinese characters in ink.

‘You’re welcome to take it,’ said Hermansson. ‘I can’t read Chinese.’

She put it in her bag and prepared to leave.

‘Many thanks for your help.’

Hermansson smiled. ‘It was nothing. Are you satisfied?’

‘More than satisfied.’

She was heading for the exit when she heard Hermansson’s voice behind her.

‘I might have something else for you. But you seem to be in a hurry — perhaps you don’t have time?’

Birgitta Roslin went back to the counter. Hermansson smiled. Then he pointed towards something behind his head. Roslin didn’t understand at first what she was supposed to see. There was a clock hanging on the wall and a calendar from a garage promising quick and efficient service on all Ford cars.

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘Your eyes must be even worse than mine,’ said Hermansson.

He took a wooden pointer from underneath the counter.

‘The clock’s slow,’ he explained. ‘I use this pointer to adjust the hands. It’s not a good idea for a rickety old body like mine to stand on a stepladder.’

He pointed up at the wall, next to the clock. All she could see was a ventilator. She still didn’t understand what he was trying to show her. Then she realised: it wasn’t a ventilator, but an opening in the wall for a camera lens.

‘We can find out what this man looked like,’ said Sture Hermansson, looking pleased with himself.

‘Is it a surveillance camera?’

‘It certainly is. I made it myself.’

‘So you take pictures of everybody who stays in your hotel?’

‘Video films. I don’t even know if it’s legal. But I have a button I press under the counter. The camera films whoever is standing there.’

He looked at her with an amused smile.

‘I’ve just filmed you, for instance,’ he said. ‘You’re in exactly the right place to make a good picture.’

Roslin accompanied him into the room behind the counter. This was evidently where he slept, as well as being his office. Through an open door she could see an old-fashioned kitchen where a woman stood washing dishes.

‘That’s Natasha,’ said Hermansson. ‘Her real name’s something different, but I think all Russian women should be called Natasha.’

He looked at Roslin, and his face clouded over.

‘I hope you’re not a police officer,’ he said.

‘Certainly not.’

‘I don’t think she has all the right papers. But as I understand it, that applies to most of our immigrant workers.’

‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Birgitta Roslin. ‘But I’m not a police officer.’

He started sorting through the video cassettes, all of which were dated.

‘Let’s hope my nephew remembered to press the button,’ he said. ‘I haven’t checked the films from the beginning of January. We had hardly any guests then.’

After a lot of fumbling around that made Birgitta Roslin want to snatch the cassettes out of his hands, he found the right one and switched on the television. Natasha flitted through the room like a silent shadow, and disappeared.

Hermansson pressed the play button. Roslin leaned forward. The picture was surprisingly clear. A man with a large fur hat was standing at the counter.

‘Lundgren from Järvsö,’ said Hermansson. ‘He comes to stay here once a month in order to be left in peace so that he can drink himself silly in his room. When he’s drunk, he sings hymns. Then he goes back home. A nice man. Scrap dealer. He’s been coming to stay with me for nearly thirty years. I give him a discount.’

The television screen started flickering. When the picture became clear again, two middle-aged women were standing in front of the counter.

‘Natasha’s friends,’ said Hermansson solemnly. ‘They come now and then. I’d rather not think about what they do for a living. But they’re not allowed to entertain guests in this hotel. Mind you, I suspect they do so when I’m asleep.’

‘Do they also get a discount?’

‘Everybody gets a discount. I don’t have any set prices. The hotel’s been operating at a loss since the end of the 1960s. I actually live off a little portfolio of stocks and shares. I rely on forestry and heavy industry. There’s only one piece of advice I give to my trusted friends.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Swedish industrial stocks. They’re unbeatable.’

A new picture appeared on the screen. Birgitta Roslin sat up and took notice. The man’s picture was very clear. A Chinese man, wearing a dark overcoat. He glanced up at the camera. It seemed almost as if he were looking her in the eye. Young, she thought. No more than thirty, unless the camera’s telling a lie. He collected his key and disappeared from the screen, which went black.